News and information on the misuse of technology for political reasons.
Politically motivated computer crime covers a wide range of activity promoting the objectives of individuals, groups or nations supporting a variety of causes such as: Anti-globalization, trans-national conflicts and protest.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Infowar Monitor has posted a short analysis of a cyber attack targeting foreign journalists based in China including "Reuters, the Straits Times, Dow Jones, Agence France Presse, and Ansa." The attack consisted of an email from a purported journalists interested in visiting China containing an attached PDF file with malware. The technique appears to be related to previous attacks with political motivation in the region:

"The malware exploits vulnerabilities in the Adobe PDF Reader, and its behaviour matches that of malware used in previous attacks dating back to 2008. This malware was found on computers at the Offices of Tibet in London, and has used political themes in malware attachments in the past."

The Singapore Government issued a press release announcing the creation of the Singapore Infocomm Technology Security Authority (SITSA) "to secure Singapore’s IT environment, especially vis-à-vis external threats to national security such as cyber-terrorism and cyber-espionage."

Specifically SITSA will provide:

IT Security Consultancy for strategic Government projects that have national security impact

Partnership Development to build relationships with key entities strategic to enhancing Singapore’s IT security

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

It appears that the Indian Government will soon amend the Information Technology Act of 2008 with changes to:

"...[strengthen] Extradition Law of India to effectively challenge the cyber crimes, including effective provisions regarding cyber war and cyber terrorism in India, International harmonisation of cyber law, providing sound cyber law and cyber security..."

It does not appear that an actual text of the proposed amendment is available online.

U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a U.S. based non-profit organization released the results of its study of the cyber attacks on Georgia in 2008.

"The study concludes that the cyberattacks against Georgian targets were carried out by civilians, many of them recruited via social networking forums devoted to dating, hobbies and politics."

It points out the complexities involved in politically motivated attacks due to the involvement of actors with varying skills and agendas:

"...sympathizers who were not hackers, and who didn't even know much about computers, could participate.

"The report says the civilian cyberattackers were aided and supported by Russian organized crime. Although they found no evidence of direct involvement by the Russian government or military, the report concludes that the organizers were tipped off about the timing of Russian military operations."

About Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson has more than 24 years of experience in security and is Managing Director of Encurve, LLC.
Mr. Anderson is a recognized expert on security and politically motivated computer crime and has been quoted by numerous publications including the Washington Post, WSJ, CNN, AP, Reuters, USA Today, LA Business Daily, Singapore Business Times, Danish National Radio and the BBC.
He has held positions as Senior VP of IT Security and Investigations with an international risk consultancy, as Director of Analysis & Investigations with PwC and as the European Info Security Manager for Digital Equipment Corporation.
He has provided assistance to law enforcement and government agencies including the FBI, US Secret Service, DoD, DoJ, FLETC, Scotland Yard, The German BKA, the Russian MVD and Norwegian, Danish and Swiss police. He provided consulting to OECD on international harmonization of computer crime laws and the British Parliament on the development of the UK’s Computer Misuse Act.
Mr. Anderson is a Certified Information Security Manager. He has served on Motorola’s Research Visionary Board for Security, and ISACA’s Security Management Advisory Board.